i went to bed around two a.m. and woke three times before finally getting up at eight. the first time was to roommate A and girl A, conversing in russian and going into his room. the second time was to roommate B and girl B, conversing loudly in english and going into his room. the third time was at maybe seven o clock or so to roommate B and girl B having loud sex. the screaming only lasted five minutes or so and they only had one go, which gave me the chance to sleep another hour. i finally got up and i left my room to take a shower and greeted roommate B who was now standing in the hall. i took a shower and was walked in on and apologized to by girl B. i leave and pot smoke is thick in the hall.

sunday morning pot sex. someone's living it up.

the v.u. song was stuck in my head so i listened to it on the way to work.

i rode my bike to meet my friend for breakfast in a place that reeks of central western europe in every sense

I moved in a hurricane.
The next morning felt all too staged and functional.
These are mornings of beginnings-to-days
and I'd rather be having mornings that were not connected to any sort of day at all.

i don't enjoy my mornings anymore. they've shortened from dread, and not because of the earth slowly tipping away from the from the sun. dread of class. dread of work. i don't want to get up. they hate me there, you know? coffee is chugged instead of savored before i have to hop onto my bike and peddle away to my fate. now i know that i'm back.

most mornings this summer i've spent watching other people have good mornings, as they decisively or indesicively choose a pastry, better when it's raining and cool, and there's only a couple relaxed people who read in silence, which usually ends quickly with stampedes of mothers and crankies.
but there are moments.

good night

This morning my landlord woke me up to inform me that someone was going to patch up the hole in my ceiling, finally. I realized later that a smooth ceiling only traps the stench of smoke even more, which is why I'm on the deck at 12:45 AM trying to read and write and enjoy myself. Freezing to death. "No smoking in the house, we have carpet." Worst invention by far.

After an hour of trying to sleep on the couch--evicted from my own room--I biked to the Ethiopian cafe before work. My coffee was in a ceramic mug. I had breakfast. There's nothing nicer, despite the fact that I had work 11 AM and I didn't have time to finish my egg, cheese and bacon sandwich. I can't have everything the way I want it, anymore.

"I can't remember yesterday. I smoke my head off. I smoke weed all the damn time." --Keith Richards

Do you want to look like this guy?

drunken blanketless sleep in a cold room+
sparse resting+cigarettes+allergies+asthma=negligence x circumstance=sick

my mom has been having ominous dreams of my death which has given rise to a strengthening consensus in my home that there is something terribly wrong with me. last night i was in my bed staring at the postcard of john cleese i have taped to the ceiling breathing laboredly and dwelling on the possibility of my death. i had actually just returned from my grandmas funeral so death is a hot topic in my brain. i fell asleep.

and woke up five hours later surrounded by the fog of death sentiment. and the morning dragged in that minor key.

All I felt like doing this morning as I grappled for vibrating tones through squinted eyes while rubbing last night's mascara off my cheeks was to throw my phone across the room and tell it to go to hell. Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Pile on skipping school and hazelnut coffee and you've got yourself a perfect day of sticking it to the man. I need to do this more often.

I woke up on the wrong side of pms. I am so irritated. As soon as the alarm sounded at 7:10, I knew I didn't want to go to work. But I'd already taken a day off earlier this week for the exact same reasons, so this was not a possibility, or was it? Upon reaching for my contact case, holding the very last of my contact supply, I found that it was missing. I looked to the blurry vision of my kitten Fig, and he meowed meekly with guilt. Apparently, Fig holds a great affection for taking my contact case in his mouth and hiding it in unknown crevices. Frantically, I searched all the usual spots, albeit in a handicapped state since I was BLIND. I screamed at Fig, implored my roommate for sight and help and experienced overall hell. Part of me was a little excited for the potential excuse to stay home and sleep in, but the more practical side of me knew my ass would be grass if I didn't find my contacts. Contacts found, shower hastily jumped in and out of, I made it to work. And I don't want to be here.

But the Jalepeno beef jerky serving as breakfast (courtesy of my hillbilly coworker Frank) is making me feel a little better.

I've put my pillow on the opposite side of the bed, so my head is right next to the window, which I leave open most nights. Waking up with the sun in your face is the only way to wake up, I have found.

Unless you beat the sun, in which case proving that European residency is not necessary for morning bakery visits becomes of specific and special importance.

So that is what I did. A friend and I consumed a chocolate croissant, hazelnut croissant, hot cross bun and apple flaky something and shared a cup of coffee. Decadence. But pastries should certainly not become the focal point here.

A local park soon became host to our morning escapade. We kicked around an abandoned soccer ball we found sitting at lonely quarter field of a soccer green. Later, with the aid of a homemade quilt and a guitar, a playground found a new use as private auditorium where we played and sang an assortment of Simon and Garfunkel/Elliott Smith/ Etc. tunes i.e. spaced out and stared at the sky, serenading all the dog walkers lucky enough to be dog walking past.

Babe on VHS, the end.

I forgot about the spring back this morning. Now instead of an hour of morning left, I have six minutes. I'm spending those six minutes watching my new kitten Fig meow through mouthfuls of food and tentatively investigate my apartment. Life is good.

This morning, I was abducted.

An interesting morning. Too bad none of the interesting events actually happened to me.

Stayed with my mother last night since she was home alone and under the weather. Woke up early and sank a kiss into my half-sleeping mama's melting cheek. Then I left. Got a bag of cheddar and sour cream potato chips at a gas station to provide tasty, albeit unhealthy morning sustenance. Sat in traffic sleepily. Sat in more traffic sleepily. Got to work to find all parking taken. With a disgruntled sigh, I circled the block a couple times until I found a parking spot that will probably eventuate in me getting a parking ticket. Then I went to work.

Apparently during all of this, my mother had fully waken up to see that I had left all my belongings (which I told her I'd pick up after work while she fluttered in semi-stupor). My poor mother, dishelved and confused, tromped around the small townhouse meekly calling out my name. She looked outside the lace-curtained window. She thought she saw my car outside (not mine, but my aunt's. Both taupe Toyotas, so it's easy to get confused). But there was no sign of me anywhere. She started to panic. She called my cousin and insisted that something horrible had happened. I had been kidnapped. Abducted. It was 7:51am in the morning and I was probably trapped in a Siberian death camp being tortured by saber-wielding sherpas.

My mom finally called me frantically, in a voice trembling with fear. "OHMYGOD YOU'RE ALIVE." An hour had passed since I had seen her, but imaginative histories of me wandering pants-less, teary-eyed, beaten and raped up and down Braddock Road had already taken their toll . "Please call Shannon and tell her you're alive. I called her. I was so worried."

I called my loving cousin and roommate. I laughed right into the earpiece, loud and incredulous. "Did you really think I'd been abducted? You really believed my mom?"

"I didn't know. Things happen. I thought maybe you went outside for a morning cigarette and never made it back."

"You don't sound like you were all that concerned."

"I was. If you were lying in a ditch somewhere, who'd pay the rent?"

the answer

After two failed attempts at trying to score the perfect breakfast pastry, I gave the local cafe one more shot yesterday morning. I scoured the display glass apprehensively until I landed on the word "čokoláda." No more but-I-thought-it-was-a-chocolate-croissant mistakes. "Latte....ah. and uh ro-lah-da choh-coh-lah-da, prosim?" butchering the language of the lady behind the counter. 35 crowns for the latte, 13 crowns for the pastry. For your information, that's about 2 dollars for the latte and 75 cents for the (finally!) delicious little "roloda čokoláda."

Third time's the charm, bitchdog.

A million things entered my mind this morning as i dashed madly through the front door and back about five times.

Contacts, 20 lb text book, ipod sitting primly in it's proper place on the speakers, cinnamon toast still in the toaster (ignored and forgotten in all of its burnt sugary glory), heels yanked forcefully over lotion-less skin, scarf wrapped around with skillful hands in an envious knot, kisses swiftly blown up the spiral staircase wishing a lazily over-sleeping body some sense of fulfillment during his lackluster day.

Eventually I realized it was too late - the bus had pleasantly tooted away.

I delicately pried my heels off the already swollen, cracking feet and lathered them up in honeysuckle lotion. With my head resting on my knees I could spot the discarded bits of notes and post-its that had rained upon the floor throughout the last few weeks and noticed a fortune I thought I had thrown away in haste.

That was the first time I smiled this morning. Many more were to follow.

My baby cousins are jerks.

My peaceful slumber was doth disturbed by two devious dwarves who usurped my comfortable bed last night. At 6:45 AM, an unruly mop top with a toothless grin stuck its head out of my bedroom doorway, wagged her tongue at me and slammed the door. I woke up with a grunt and stumbled to my bedroom. I tried to forcefully regain authority of my bed, but the devious dwarves squealed and kicked their six year-old vigorous limbs onto my back while asserting that I was "a big giant poo-poo head".

Irate, I told them to go bother Shannon instead. They leapt from my bed with glee. I settled into my pillows with a contended sigh as I heard the sound of my cousin groaning from her room followed by the churlish laughter of our charges.

Peace did not reign for long, as I was rudely awoken again at 8 AM. Shannon kicked open my door and with grim sleeplessness declared, "Get the fuck up. Right now. I can't deal with these kids on my own."

The morning got better, I guess. Pancake House cures any early-morning scorn.

When I woke up I had only 2 minutes of morning left.

muted sounds of a sobbing voice on the other end of a duct-taped monstrosity of a phone broke my fitful dreams at 1 am this morning. i rolled over under the deflated half-fluffed pillow trying to erase the sounds keeping me between waking sighs and oblivion. the persistent voice crying so helplessly over a goddamn boy to the body next to me sleepily consoling her wouldn't allow this to be so. eventually i ripped the covers off my sweat-drenched form and blindly stumbled out of the room, bruising my already tender legs as i walked into merciless corners stiffly decorating the smothering hallway. a chance meeting between myself occurred as i grasped hold of the gilded edges of a mirror to shoulder my sudden desire to fall - melt into the floor boards that beckoned to me so longingly. i saw myself - red rimmed eyes, pitiful tear streaks no longer worthy of that title for lack of moisture, lips so used to smiling a stranger on that desolate face...


and i cried.

This morning I woke up to the incessant ringing of our dorm room phone, followed by my roommate's Hebrew croaks. I shoved my earplugs further down my ear hole, and pulled my blanket over my head and let out a little groan. Her mom always calls at 9 in the morning. A decent hour, but not by my standards.

I finally woke up at 11, and realized I went to bed with my contacts on. I wore glasses today to amend my mistake. I need wax earplugs.

Had a egg and cheese bagel sandwich from across the street. The nice Korean lady at the deli winked at me and said "Early today." Don't normally do breakfast, but this morning the beast of hunger awoke in my belly and roused into full fire. Sandwich was delicious. Eggs over-easy and a nice slice of ultra-processed-orange Velveeta cheese exist as one of the most simplistic, but highly pleasing marriages ever. Like John and Paul. Ringo and Octopuses Gardens.

Now my head is bobbing and I can feel my eyelids flutter closed like heavy-lidded drops of honey. I could really use a nap.